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The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during social media attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The administration is observing at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently